datamusicata

How do we keep our commitment to our art when everything around us is pulling at our time and our attention? How do we practice every day when we’re so tired we can’t even change the channel on our remote?

Good questions by good people and, of course, there’s no simple answer. We have more responsibilities than just our art. There are our relationships with the vital people in our lives, other commitments that we’ve made, and the day to day, which must be addressed or it piles up and overwhelms us.

That’s why many financially successful artists employ personal assistants (pa’s). So that the day to day will be handled and the artist can focus on their art. And the more that they can focus on their art, the more they create and the better they get at it. So for an artist starting out, the competition is fierce.

One of my favorite recordings is Kind of Blue by Miles Davis and his ensemble of incredible musicians. When I first heard that album, I was about sixteen and I remember thinking that no matter how much I practice, I’m never going to be that good. They have a special gift that I simply wasn’t given and there’s no way I can compete. It was a little discouraging.

You are trying to get better and take advantage of the gifts that God gave you, but all of life is pulling at you and there’s no one else to handle all of your life’s problems but you. All the more reason to figure out a game plan and stick to it. Otherwise you will remain a dilettante. You will never achieve what you hoped to achieve or what you could achieve with the gifts given you.

You hear music or see art by one of the greats and it is so easy to believe that you could never achieve that kind of greatness, but there is always more to the story. Nobody great ever did it all by themselves. You need to find ways to devote more time to your art and getting help from other people is one of the ways.

Learn to delegate. You don’t have to do everything yourself. There are others who may do something better than you. Enlist them to do what they do best. Easier said than done, I know, but there are ways. Before money there was bartering. I’ll do this for you if you do that for me. You can figure it out if you want to.

In terms of what you can personally do for yourself, the easiest way for me to approach this is to do what I have to do first. I try to get up early enough in the morning to do what I have committed to do before I tackle anything else the day has to bring. And save your emails for the end of the day because they can eat up your entire morning unless you are extremely disciplined.

At the end of the day, it also helps to put together a list of what you have to do tomorrow and then prioritize it. That means that you make the list and then you number it. What is the most vital thing I have to do? What has a time constraint? What has a deadline? Practice has to be near or at the top of that list. And you have to be able to devote at least an hour a day to that. The more time, the better you get. Period. This is not rocket science. The harder you work, the more you practice, the better you get.

So the commitment isn’t for forty hours of practice a week. It’s not for some goal that you can’t possibly achieve. To give yourself a goal like that is to invite failure and discouragement. Just make a commitment for today. What are you going to do with today? Then after you’ve lived up to the commitments of the day, see if you can do it for two days in a row. Then three, then five, then a week. Finally set your sights on a goal that is further and harder. But don’t start out shooting for the moon. Just get today under your belt. If you do that, I promise that tomorrow will be just that much easier.